Managing Individual
Differences
Assessing Personalities
Why Personality?
• Top managerial challenge:
– “The most frequent problems are a result of
mismatched personalities” Davenport and
Harris (“Competing on Analytics”)
• Selection and placement in the right roles
• PI Index: Clients include Microsoft, Exxon,
IKEA, Caterpillar
Alan Mulally
CEO, Ford
The Demanding
Cheerleader
Dan Akerson
CEO, GM
Management by
Barking
Sergio Marchionne
CEO, Chrysler
Management by
Walking Around
“gives hugs and means
it… no blame thrower but
no soft touch either…
has swept aside a
culture of politicking and
back-covering among
Ford executives”
“A gruff former naval
officer with a frosty
demeanor…doesn’t do
hugs.” Shook up
bureaucracy at GM but
analysts “worry about the
effect of all that orderingabout on morale...
[wrong] approach to take
with unions/dealers”
“constantly on the move,
dressed casually in a
dark sweater (he says he
buys them in bulk)…
frequently pops up at
Chrysler’s and Fiat’s
factories to fix things on
the spot– for good or ill,
a micromanager”
Personality in the workplace
• Should we select on the basis of personality for jobs? If so, how?
• Should managers seek to provide feedback on personality issues?
Should they attempt to “fix” personalities? Should they coach others
on personality “improvement”?
• Do organizations need to be diverse in terms of personality? Will
organizations that are diverse in terms of personality perform better
in the marketplace than those that are homogenous?
Key Challenges
• What is personality, and what is its relation to
behavior?
• Is personality in the eye of the beholder? What
of self-fulfilling prophecies?
• What’s an appropriate scientific measure of
personality? Is it valid? Is it reliable?
• How does one distinguish the influence of
personality on actions from that of culture on
actions?
• Is personality destiny?
The Blank Slate?
• We all harbor theories of human nature:
we use them to persuade, threaten,
inform, love, deceive. We also use them to
manage people in the workplace.
• The human mind has no inherent
structure; it is malleable and can be
shaped by socialization, culture, etc.?
• John Locke’s empiricism vs. modern
genetics
The Blank Slate?
Personality Predicts Brain Response During
Cognitive Tasks
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Kumari, Ffytche, Williams, and Gray (2004), The Journal of Neuroscience
History in Brief
Earliest work: Personality as inner essence.
Freud/Jung: Influence of early experience on later
personality; structure of personality; role of subconscious and collective conscious.
Skinner: Focus on observable behaviors; operant
conditioning.
Personality Today
• Walter Mischel (1960s):
Key influence of situation
on behaviors
• Current focus:
- Behavior as function of
disposition and situation
- More recent work looking
into the link between
biology and personality
(resurrection of social
darwinism?)
- The Big 5; Selfmonitoring
The Big Five Personality Dimensions
Personality Dimension
Characteristics of a Person
Scoring Positively on the
Dimension
1) Openness to experience
Intellectual, imaginative, curious,
broad minded
2) Conscientiousness
Dependable, responsible,
achievement oriented, persistent
3) Agreeableness
Trusting, good natured,
cooperative, soft hearted
4) Extraversion
Outgoing, talkative, social,
assertive
5) Neuroticism/Emotional
Relaxed, secure, unworried
stability
Myers-Briggs
Attitudes
Extraversion
Introversion
Action
Sensing
Reflection
Perceiving Functions
INtuition
Objective evidence
Abstract evidence
Judging Functions
Thinking
Feeling
Detached
Empathetic
Ambassador Functions
Judging
Closure
Perceiving
Open-ended
- Preferred modes of action (not aptitude), like being left or right handed. Type
(one or the other) not trait (matter of degree).
- 93 forced choice questions used to categorize into one of 16 possible types.
(e.g., ENFP; ISTP; etc.)
Sample Questions from MBTI
•
You are almost never late for your appointments
YES NO
•
You like to be engaged in an active and fast-paced job
YES NO
•
You enjoy having a wide circle of acquaintances
YES NO
•
You feel involved when watching TV soaps
YES NO
•
You are usually the first to react to a sudden event:
the telephone ringing or unexpected question
YES NO
89% of the Fortune 100 use the MBTI
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
MBTI
• INFJ: “The counselor”
I: 11%; N: 88%; F: 75%; J: 1%
I= Introvert; N=Intuitive; F=Feeling; J=Judging
- Contribute to others’ welfare
- Like jobs requiring solitude
- Also like interacting non-superficially with people
- Exert influence behind the scenes
- Attuned to values and seeking unique identity
Examples: Sidney Poitier, Alec Guiness, Carl Jung
1.5% of the US population is INFJ
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp
Problems with Psychometric Tests
• Forced choice questions (but we’re often in the middle: continuous
not binary)
• Assumes that who we are is consistent; but in fact it depends, it
varies depending on other factors (e.g., preference for type of boss
depends upon type of job)
• Personality: A consistent pattern of behavior– but this pattern may
vary across situations
• Very low test-retest consistency
• (Jung: “every individual is an exception to the rule”; “…a parlor
game”)
• Adaptive unconscious versus constructed self: which self are we
tapping.
• Two steps removed: personality trait behavior test
• Test for global personality traits or local behaviors related to the
specific role you are trying to select for?
Why do Firms Use these Tests?
(Despite the fact that they are potentially invalid)
• Speed of processing
• Desperate need to anticipate, understand,
and resolve interpersonal issues
• Self-fulfilling prophecies
• “Hawthorne” effects
The Opacity of Behavior?
• Why can’t we simply divine intent and
motivation from observed action?
Paul Ekman
• http://www.cio.com/archiv
e/120104/faces.html
• The face is like a penis?
• Can one learn about true
intentions by looking at
discrepancies between
spoken words and body
language?
Why Does Personality Matter in
the Contemporary Workplace?
•
If this were 1965 [you] would have gone to work for a company, donned a blue suit,
sat in your office and kept your head down; the particulars of your personality
wouldn’t have mattered much.
•
The culture of most companies out there today is such that you will not get a social
script, blue suit, and organizational chart. You are expected to be part of a fluid team,
flexible and innovative, to work with shifting groups in the absence of hierarchy. The
workplace doubles as a rec room: The particulars of your personality matter a great
deal.
•
What is personality?
–
Motivations, skills, preferences, patterns of if..then responses (learned or hardwired?)
Who cares about personality?
Select based on performance?
The Talent Myth
•
The very best companies have leaders who obsess over talent. Recruit stars;
reward disproportionately; push them into upper management track:”bet on the
natural athletes”
•
“The only thing that distinguishes Enron from competitors is our people, our
talent. We hire very smart people and we pay them more than they think they
are worth.” Ken Lay
•
Differentiation and Affirmation: A (challenge and handsomely (>2/3) reward), B
(encourage and affirm), or C (shape up or ship out).
•
How should talent be assessed? Intelligence and intrinsic qualities or raw
experience and past performance?
•
What’s wrong with obsessing over talented employees?
•
Is “talent” a fixed endowment, or can it be developed/wasted?
•
Is the system is only as strong as its strongest stars vs. the system is the star:
Enron vs. P&G
The War for Talent
• Hire those with the highest IQs/those from the “best” schools?
- Correlation between IQ and job performance is around .1
- At school, most things are about “working by yourself. If you
work with someone else, it’s called cheating….in the real
world, everything you do involves working with people.”
• Assessing workplace ability: notoriously difficult: how do you
assess performance when someone is moving too fast for a
meaningful assessment?
• The story of Lou Pai at Enron: Is talent something separate
from performance?
Kronos and the P.I. Index: A Classic Story of a Growing
Organization
•
What problems arose as Kronos went from being a small startup to a (pre-public
offering) company with $30 million in annual sales? (Today: 3400 employees;
taken private in 2007)
•
Describe Mark Ain’s personality: What kind of a manager was he (before
Praendex)?
•
What problems prompted Mark to bring Praendex into the picture?
•
What are the theories underlying Praendex’s approach to personality assessment?
Do you buy into their views? Why or why not?
•
What kinds of benefits did Kronos gain from the use of personality testing?
•
Would you recommend a product like Praendex to companies? Why or why not.
•
http://www.kronos.com
Mark Ain and Problems before
Praendex
• Mark Ain:
– Founded company in ’77; by ’90,
– B.S., MIT; MBA, Rochester (OB)
- “I was always interested in what made organizations and people tick”
- “I always knew that I wanted to do my own thing”
- Early years: “did everything”
- People thought: “I made decisions from the hip”; too involved in
everything
- “My philosophy was the best argument would win.’
- “I assumed this was a good way to operate because I was
comfortable operating in this mode”
- Hired Garret Lewis as COO in ’86; by ’90 let him go
Question: “Could my management team handle higher level of
responsibility? Should I look for another COO?”
Praendex and PI index
•
•
•
Uncover behavioral styles to help managers understand their own and others’
behaviors
PI index: approx. 80 words (e.g., shy, helpful): pick ones you see as desirable.
A– Dominance (unassuming<->belligerent) [motivated by money vs. encouragement)
B- Extraversion (shy/secretive<->friendly/sociable) [motivated by prestige and status
vs. prefer to work alone/want to show competence)
C- Patience (impatient/restless<-> unresponsive/lazy) [need for security and routine]
D- Formality/conform to rules (detail oriented<-> rebellious/sloppy) [like to know
what’s expected; structure and certainty; versus “do your own thing”]
“The behavior of most individuals is remarkably consistent: a person tends to respond
in the same way to particular stimuli”
PI index not perfect predictor; must control for relevant factors, such as education,
experience
Tool for pre-employment screening; promote awareness of self and others;
Benefits of PI?
• Guidance on what kinds of sales people and
branch managers to hire (more high As and Bs
instead of high Ds)
• Insight into self: “I realized how different I was
from most of our people”; and “how similar the
management team was to me”; Paul Lacy (lower
A and higher D): a valuable asset
• Mark Ain: Venturer; Paul Lacy: Specialist;
Decker: authoritative salesperson, etc.
Kronos after PI
•
The PI gave us a framework to understand our own and others’ behaviors. It gave us a language
to talk about things in a non-threatening way; it legitimated talk about these things; and it provided
an analytical lens to make sense of these issues.
•
Mark Ain started delegating more: realized he was different; delineated responsibility; stopped
second-guessing everyone.
•
Paul Lacy: from curmudgeon to valuable player (who thinks differently than others–
implementation oriented guy)
•
Created a set of common goals: Everyone is now paid based on the company’s (not department’s)
performance plan
•
Instituted a “communications committee” made up of a mix of people so Paul wouldn’t have to do
the communicating.
•
Went public on June 5, 1992 (offered at $56 million)
What to do?
• Manufacture liking:
– Promote familiarity
– Redefine similarity
– Foster bonding: the Sherif experiments/outward
bound
• Leverage the likable:
– Affective hubs: identify; protect
• Work on the jerks:
• Reassess contribution
• Socialize and coach
• Reposition (independent role)
Marshall Goldsmith
• Do you think that Goldsmith is
providing a useful service?
• Do you buy his “recipe”? Why or
why not?
• http://www.marshallgoldsmith.com/Page.as
px?PageID=2
• http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/ci
m/BusinessWeek.php
Marshall Goldsmith
• Do you think that
Goldsmith is providing
a useful service?
• Do you buy his
“recipe”? Why or why
not?
• There are no selves, only
behaviors
• Not behaviors,
perceptions
• Self is an illusion
• “Easier to get un-f*ed up
than to understand why
you’re f*ed up, so just get
un-f*ed up”
• Recipe: Apologize, reject
excuses, declare
dependence
Impressions Don’t Manage Themselves
© Michael E. Wasserman, 2010
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